EDITORIAL: Ratepayers not liable for UCAN

It's nice work if you can get it: If you are an intervenor in California, you get to work in the name of people who can't fire you, but who are nevertheless on the hook for paying you.

California state law allows private organizations to represent, on their own authority, ratepayers of public utilities at hearings where the utilities are seeking rate hikes for the electricity, natural gas or telephone service they provide. If, after their intervention, state regulators deny the request for a rate hike or grant one lower than what the utility had sought, then these intervenors can submit a bill for the hours spent preparing their report.

And we ratepayers foot the bill, assuming those same regulators approve the request.

We are, therefore, glad to see that the state is conducting an audit of the intervenor program to see whether it is working as designed. We are eager to see the results of this audit, and believe the entire system of allowing intervenors to speak on behalf of ratepayers needs to be revisited.

It's unfair that ratepayers are forced to pay for a service that someone else decides has value. The bar for deciding whether opposing a rate increase justifies expensive intervenor fees strikes us as set too low; the ability of the folks who will pay the bill to involve themselves in the process or oppose these fees is too narrow.

In short, we believe the system is open to abuse ---- encouraging a cottage industry of full-time intervenors that is not particularly responsive to the wishes of those who fund the whole enterprise.

We wonder whether the state's authorization of intervenors isn't an admission that its own regulatory system was not working to adequately protect ratepayers from avaricious utility administrators. Why do we have staff (particularly) working for the Public Utilities Commission (particularly the Division of Ratepayer Advocates) if these outside groups are the ones representing ratepayers' interests at the hearings?

Ultimately, it is only the ratepayers themselves ---- in their other role as voters ---- who can bring about any meaningful change. Perhaps the occasion of this audit will actually spark interest on these costs among the folks who pay for them.